Scientology hides from grave allegations behind the mask of religion

L Ron Hubbard's church is under increasing attack, but by calling itself a religion Scientology is shielded from scrutiny

John Sweeney
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 February 2013 10.00 EST

Add religion to its treasure and power to intimidate, and the Church of Scientology may seem untouchable.' Photograph: Startraks Photo/Rex Features

Millions of Americans watching the Super Bowl were treated to a soft-voiced ad featuring knitting pattern magazine models boosting the church that L Ron built, but elsewhere the Scientology spring is gathering pace. The latest hammer blow against the church that likes to wear dark glasses is Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape – a misery memoir by Jenna Miscavige Hill, alleging that her uncle, Scientology's "Pope" David Miscavige, is evil. A charge he denies.

Add a major lawsuit in the US by aggrieved ex-members, a criminal prosecution in Belgium, a war of attrition across the internet and three highly critical books so far this year.

Fear of Britain's libel laws meant that Going Clear by Lawrence Wright was not formally published in the UK, and no big UK publisher would touch my book, Church of Fear, but all three books are now on sale and make for horrible reading for "Pope" Miscavige and his celebrity apostles Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

Yet critics who hope that the end of the Church of Scientology is nigh are probably deluded, until someone powerful and brave on the other side of the Atlantic steps in.

7. Clearly, you are correct...

However, my intent was to invoke "cult" in the more pejorative sense of the word. Because Scientology is cur-ay-zee as they come. (I mean other than possibly the House of Yahweh and their nuclear baby.)

But you are making a rhetorical argument here and I am making a cultural one. That's why I don't wish to go back and forth with you on it.

Everybody knows what I mean when I call Scientology a dangerous cult and that was the intent of my little post.

BTW, friend. Have you looked at the Rick Ross Site. That seems to be the clearinghouse for all things cultic. There's encyclopedic information and support for what society considers a cult... or not.

Regardless, Ross is the guy who researches this stuff and gets it out there.

Thanks for the response, my friend. But let's not get in a rhetorical disagreement here.

8. I'm just yanking your chain.

We are in complete agreement.

Although, I would disagree that Scientology is any more "crazy" than any other religious belief system. I always find it amusing when a person that believes in some absurd nonsense, say, like a dead person coming back to life, calls another persons absurd belief "crazy."

17. They out-lawyered the IRS and the IRS finally gave up.

16. The CoS continues to exist, and thrive, because it takes advantage of a number of items.

Some of them are legally established, like the rules about churches and taxes, etc.

However some of them are thanks to the cover of moderate believers who admonish atheists for being so rude for criticizing religious beliefs, and being upset with the lack of critical thinking applied to said beliefs.